Systems and methods for intelligent audio output

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for a media guidance application that adjusts output parameters of media assets delivered to output devices based on user preferences of users near the output devices. For example, the media guidance application may adjust the volume to be higher at a speaker near a first user who enjoys a particular media asset and lower at a speaker near a second user who dislikes the media asset.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/902,521 (now allowed), filed Jun. 16, 2020, which is a continuationof U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/524,945 (now U.S. Pat. No.10,721,591), filed Jul. 29, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/989,645 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,419,879), filedMay 25, 2018, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/215,168 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,064,009), filed Jul. 20, 2016, thedisclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein intheir entireties.

BACKGROUND

Even with the plethora of media content available to consumers today, itstill can be difficult to find media content that multiple users enjoy.One approach of conventional systems has been to provide grouprecommendations based on pooled media content preferences from aplurality of users. However, while these group recommendation enginesoutput media assets that may be preferred by many users of a group ofusers, some users may not prefer the selected media asset and still haveto watch and/or listen to it. This is especially troublesome in closedenvironments, such as a car or a room, where the user may be locatedclose to an output device playing the media asset. Furthermore, in someinstances, a user may have the opposite problem and wish to hear themedia asset, but they are located far away from the nearest outputdevice.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, systems and methods are disclosed herein for a mediaguidance application that adjusts output parameters of media assetsdelivered to output devices based on user preferences of users near theoutput devices. For example, the media guidance application may adjustthe volume to be higher at a speaker near a first user who enjoys aparticular media asset and lower at a speaker near a second user whodislikes the media asset. As another example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that a user enjoys a media asset, but is toofar from an output device to view or listen to the media asset or thatother users do not enjoy the media asset. In this instance, the mediaguidance application may alert the user to use a different output devicetype to view and/or listen to the media asset (e.g., on a mobile phone).By adjusting the output of devices near users based on their individualpreferences, the present systems and methods can optimize each user'senjoyment of the same media asset in a shared listening and/or viewingexperience.

In some aspects, the media guidance application may determine a firstuser is at a first position, where the first position corresponds to afirst output device. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive an indication from a radio-frequency identification (“RFID”)reader in the rear driver side door of a car that it has detected anRFID chip corresponding to a user. The media guidance application maythen determine that since the user is seated in the rear driver sideseat of the car, the user's position corresponds to a speaker in therear driver side door.

The media guidance application may determine that a second user is at asecond position that corresponds to a second output device. For example,the media guidance application may receive an indication that a deviceassociated with a second user is connected to a port located near thefront passenger side seat of a car. The media guidance application maythen determine that since the second user is seated in the frontpassenger side seat, the second user's position corresponds to a speakerin the front passenger side seat door.

The media guidance application may then receive a first user preferenceof the first user and a second user preference of a second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a first userpreference for music by the artist, “Justin Bieber,” and a second userpreference for music by the artist, “Miles Davis.” Likewise, the mediaguidance application may receive, from a second user input by the seconduser, the second user preference. For example, the media guidanceapplication may receive a user input from a touch screen on a mobiledevice that the first user prefers “classic rock” songs. Likewise, themedia guidance application may receive a user input from a keypad of amobile device that the second user prefers “hip-hop” songs.Alternatively or additionally, the media guidance application may accessa first user profile associated with the first user and a second userprofile associated with the second user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may access the profiles on a website based on a link to thewebsite associated with each user stored in storage. The media guidanceapplication may then retrieve the first user preference from the firstuser profile and the second user preference from the second userprofile. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve theuser preference of the first and second user from posts on theirrespective user profiles.

The media guidance application may receive a media asset. For example,the media guidance application may receive the song, “Sorry,” by JustinBieber from a content provider such as a radio broadcaster or an on-linestreaming media provider. For example, the media guidance applicationmay be implemented on a car audio system or other user device thatoutputs audio content via one or more speakers, and receive one or moremedia assets for presentation to a group of users.

The media guidance application may then determine whether to present themedia asset to the first user based on the first user preferencecorresponding to a characteristic of the media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that the received media asset,“Sorry,” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., a characteristic ofthe media asset). The media guidance application may then determinebased on character matching or other means of comparing two strings oftext that the characteristic (e.g., “Justin Bieber”) matches the userpreference (e.g., music by the artist “Justin Bieber”). Likewise, themedia guidance application may determine whether the second userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the receivedmedia asset, “Sorry” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., acharacteristic of the media asset). The media guidance application maythen determine based on character matching or other means of comparingtwo strings of text that the characteristic (e.g., “Justin Bieber”) doesnot match the user preference (e.g., music by the artist “Miles Davis”).

In some embodiments, to determine whether to present the media asset tothe first user based on the first user preference corresponding to acharacteristic of the media asset, the media guidance application mayreceive metadata from a content source for the media asset. For example,the media guidance application may receive metadata for an upcoming songon the station “FM93.1, Current Pop Hits.” The media guidanceapplication may then compare the metadata for the media asset to thefirst user preference. For example, the metadata may includecharacteristics of the upcoming song, such as the title and artist. Themedia guidance application may compare this to the user preference, forexample, “Bon Jovi.” The media guidance application may then determinewhether the metadata for the media asset matches the first userpreference. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat since the artist of the song is not “Bon Jovi,” the media assetdoes not match the first user preference.

Furthermore, in some embodiments, when determining to present the mediaasset to the first user based on whether the first user preferencecorresponds to the characteristic of the media asset, the media guidanceapplication may compare the characteristic of the media asset with thefirst user preference. For example, the media guidance application maycompare the user preference for “rock” music to characteristics of themedia asset, like the title and genre of the media asset. The mediaguidance application may, based on comparing the characteristic of themedia asset with the first user preference, assign a first similarityvalue for the media asset and the first user preference. For example,the media guidance application may determine that the user preferencefor “rock” corresponds to a similarity rating of 9 out of 10 for thesong, “Smoke on the Water.” The media guidance application may comparethe first similarity value to a threshold similarity value. For example,the media guidance application may compare the 9 out of 10 similarity toa threshold similarity for presenting the media asset, such as 7 out of10. The media guidance application may, in response to determining thefirst similarity value exceeds the threshold similarity value, determineto present the media asset to the first user. For example, since 9 isgreater than 7, the media guidance application may determine to present“Smoke on the Water” to the first user.

The media guidance application may, in response to both determining topresent the media asset to the first user and determining that the firstuser is at the first position, determine to adjust an output parameterfor the media asset at the first output device. For example, upondetermining that the user likes songs by Justin Bieber and “Sorry” is asong by Justin Bieber, and that the user is seated in the rear driverside seat, the media guidance application may increase the volume of therear driver side speaker to be louder so that the user can enjoy thesong. Alternatively, the media guidance application may, in response toboth determining that the second user preference does not correspond topresenting the media asset and determining that the second user is atthe second position, determine not to adjust the output parameter forthe media asset at the second output device. For example, upondetermining that the user does not have a preference for songs by JustinBieber since “Miles Davis” is a different artist, and that the user isseated in the front passenger side seat, the media guidance applicationmay determine not to increase the volume of the front passenger seatspeaker, since the user has no preference for the song, “Sorry.” Thus,by adjusting the output parameter of a media asset selected from thepooled user preferences of users (e.g., passengers in a car) based oneach individual user's preferences, the media guidance applicationenhances a user's enjoyment of media assets he or she likes, whileminimizing a user's displeasure from media assets he or she dislikes.

The media guidance application may adjust numerous different outputparameters. In some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine the output parameter is a volume increase of the media asset.For example, the media guidance application may maintain a stored listof output parameters for different output devices and their currentvalues and determine based on user preferences to adjust certain values,such as increasing the volume. The media guidance application maydetermine an amount of the volume increase based on the first userpreference. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat since a user expresses a particularly strong interest in the mediaasset, “Sorry” to increase the volume by 20 dB. The media guidanceapplication may transmit to the first output device an indication of theamount of volume increase. For example, the media guidance applicationmay transmit a data packet to a receiver or amplifier to increase thevolume for the speaker near the first user by 20 dB.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine theoutput parameter is a version of the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may maintain a stored list of current valuesassociated with output parameters for different output devices anddetermine based on user preferences to adjust certain values, such aswhether media assets containing inappropriate content should bepresented. The media guidance application may determine from thecharacteristic of the media asset that the media asset containsinappropriate content. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine a media asset contains a Boolean for inappropriate contentassigned a value “true.” The media guidance application may, based onthe first user preference, request the alternate version of the mediaasset to transmit to the first output device. For example, if the firstuser preference is for censored media assets, the media guidanceapplication may request a censored version of the media asset (e.g.,from the content source) to output for the first user.

In addition to the techniques discussed above, the media guidanceapplication may determine the position in a number of ways. For example,the media guidance application may receive a location of the first userand use the location to determine the first position. For example, themedia guidance application may receive an indication from a pressuresensor that a user is sitting in the rear middle seat of a car, whichmay be assigned a value “4,” based on the driver's position being “1”and moving clockwise around the car. The media guidance application mayaccess a database containing a plurality of output devices and positionscorresponding to each of the plurality of output devices, where thedatabase includes the first position of the first output device and thesecond position of the second output device. For example, the mediaguidance application may access a database organized as a table whereeach row contains a different output device and each column containscoordinates and/or indicators of position of each output device.

In another example, the media guidance application may receive a packetcontaining information relating to the first user. For example, themedia guidance application receive a data packet containing a stringuser_ID=“John123,” and a string location=“backseat.” The media guidanceapplication may analyze the information contained in the packet todetermine an identity of the first user and the location of the firstuser. For example, the media guidance application may analyze thevariables received in the data packet and determine that John is sittingin the backseat of a car.

The media guidance application may retrieve a first value for the firstposition from a first field in the database and a second value for thesecond position from a second field in the database. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve information that “speaker 1,”which corresponds to the rear driver side door, has a value of “5” andthat “speaker 2,” which corresponds to the front passenger side door,has a value of “2.” The media guidance application may compare the firstvalue and the second value to the location of the first user. Forexample, the media guidance application may compare the retrieved values“2” and “5” to “4.” The media guidance application may determine thatthe first value corresponds to a shorter distance to the location of thefirst user. For example, the media guidance application may determinebased on a rule-set that the first user is located closer to the reardriver side door.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates fordisplay an indication of an upcoming media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may display on a screen in the dashboard of a cartext that “Roar, by Katy Perry” is starting soon. The media guidanceapplication may receive a first indication of interest from the firstuser in the upcoming media asset as the first user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a user selection ofa “thumbs-up” icon on the screen of a mobile device indicating that thefirst user is interested in the media asset. The media guidanceapplication may receive a second indication of interest from the seconduser in the upcoming media asset as the second user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a user selection ofa “thumbs-down” icon on the screen of a mobile device indicating thatthe second user is not interested in the media asset.

In some aspects, the media guidance application may determine a firstuser and a second user are both associated with a first output device,where the first output device has a first output device type. The firstoutput device type may be integrated speakers or integrated displayscreens in a car, room, or other location. For example, the mediaguidance application may receive an indication from an RFID reader inthe rear driver side door of a car that it has detected an RFID chipcorresponding to the first user. The media guidance application may thendetermine that since the user is seated in the rear driver side seat ofthe car, the user's position corresponds to a speaker in the rear driverside door. The media guidance application may also receive an indicationthat a device associated with the second user is connected to a portlocated near the rear driver side door of a car. The media guidanceapplication may then determine that since the second user is locatednear the rear driver side door, the second user's position correspondsto the same speaker in the rear driver side seat door.

The media guidance application may then receive a first user preferenceof the first user and a second user preference of a second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a first userpreference for music of the genre, “Pop,” and a second user preferencefor music of the genre, “Big Band.” Likewise, the media guidanceapplication may receive, from a first user input by the first user, thefirst user preference. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive a user input from a touch screen on a mobile device that thefirst user prefers “90s” songs. Similarly, the media guidanceapplication may receive, from a second user input by the second user,the second user preference. For example, the media guidance applicationmay receive a user input from a keypad of a mobile device that thesecond user prefers “70s” songs. Alternatively or additionally, themedia guidance application may access a first user profile associatedwith the first user and a second user profile associated with the seconduser. For example, the media guidance application may access theprofiles on a website based on a link to the website associated witheach user stored in storage. The media guidance application may thenretrieve the first user preference from the first user profile and thesecond user preference from the second user profile. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve the user preference of the firstand second user from posts on their respective user profiles.

The media guidance application may receive a media asset. For example,the media guidance application may receive the song, “Roar” by KatyPerry from a content provider such as a radio broadcaster or an on-linestreaming media provider. For example, the media guidance applicationmay be implemented on a car audio system or other user device thatoutputs audio content via one or more speakers, and then receive one ormore media assets for presentation to a group of users.

The media guidance application may, in response to both determining thatthe first user preference does correspond to presenting the media assetand that the second user preference does not correspond to presentingthe media asset, generate an alert notifying the first user to access asecond output device to access the media asset, wherein the secondoutput device has a second output device type. The second output devicemay be a personal computer, mobile phone, multi-media console in a carwith an input for headphones, or an mp3 player. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that “Roar” by Katy Perry is a songof the “Pop” genre, but not of the “Big Band” genre. The media guidanceapplication may then generate an alert, for example, a text message sentto a mobile device of the first user, notifying the first user thatsince the second user does not have a preference for “Roar,” in order tolisten to the song the first user has a preference for, he or she shouldplug in headphones to their mobile device which will output the song.

The media guidance application may, in response to both determining thatthe first user preference and the second user preference correspond topresenting the media asset, transmit the first media asset to the firstoutput device. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat both users have a preference for music of the “Pop” genre, whichmatches a characteristic of the song “Roar” (e.g., it is a song in the“Pop” genre). In response, the media guidance application may output thesong on the first output device since both users expressed a preferencefor it.

In some embodiments, to determine whether to present the media asset tothe first user based on the first user preference corresponding to acharacteristic of the media asset, the media guidance application maycompare the first user preference and the second user preference to acharacteristic of the media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare a characteristic of the song “Roar” by KatyPerry, such as the genre “Pop” to the first user preference for “Pop”songs and the second user preference for “Big Band” songs. The mediaguidance application may then determine that the first user preferencecorresponds to presenting the media asset and the second user preferencecorresponds to not presenting the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that since the first user preferenceexactly matches the genre of “Roar,” and that the second user preferencedoes not match the genre or any other characteristic of “Roar,” that“Roar” should be presented to the first user and not the second user.

Furthermore, in some embodiments, when determining to present the mediaasset to the first user based on whether the first user preferencecorresponds to the characteristic of the media asset, the media guidanceapplication may receive metadata from a content source for the mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may receive andextract metadata for an upcoming song on the station “FM93.1, CurrentPop Hits.” The media guidance application may compare the metadata forthe media asset to the first user preference and the second userpreference. For example, the media guidance application may extract thestring, “Pop” from a genre parameter and compare it to the first userpreference for “Pop” and the second user preference for “Big Band.” Themedia guidance application may determine the metadata for the mediaasset matches the first user preference and does not match the seconduser preference. For example, based on a pre-defined rule set ofassociations between various terms, the media guidance application maydetermine that the first user preference for “Pop” matches the genreexactly of the song “Roar” but that the second user preference for “BigBand” does not match the genre for “Roar.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine theposition of the first and second user correspond to the same outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may receive a firstlocation of the first user and a second location of the second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive an indication from apressure sensor that the first user is sitting in the middle seat of acar, which may be assigned a value “4,” based on the driver's positionbeing “1” and moving clockwise around the car. For example, the mediaguidance application may receive an indication from a pressure sensorthat the second user is sitting in the rear driver side seat of a car,which may be assigned a value “5,” based on the driver's position being“1” and moving clockwise around the car. The media guidance applicationmay access a database containing a plurality of output devices andpositions corresponding to each of the plurality of output devices,where the database includes the first position of the first outputdevice and the second position of the second output device. For example,the media guidance application may access a database organized as atable where each row contains a different output device and each columncontains coordinates and/or indicators of position of each outputdevice.

The media guidance application may retrieve a first value for the firstposition from a first field in the database. For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve that “speaker 1” corresponding to therear driver side door has value “5.” The media guidance application maycompare the first value to the first location of the first user and thefirst value to the second location of the second user. For example, themedia guidance application may compare the retrieved value “5” to thefirst user location “4” for and the second user location “5.” The mediaguidance application may determine that both the first user and thesecond user are within a threshold distance from the first outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe closest output device to locations “4” and “5” is the first outputdevice and no other output devices are closer for either the first orsecond user.

In some other embodiments, the media guidance application may determinethat the second user's position corresponds to the first output device,while the first user's position does not correspond to any outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may receive a firstlocation of the first user and a second location of the second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive an indication fromRFID readers in the middle rear seat of a car and the rear driver sideseat that it has detected RFID chips corresponding to the first user andsecond user, respectively. The media guidance application may determinefrom the second location that the second user is within a thresholddistance of the first output device. For example, based on comparisonwith a database of output devices, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second user is located within a three foot thresholddistance from the rear driver side speaker. The media guidanceapplication may determine from the first location that the first user isnot within the threshold distance of the first output device and thatthe first user is not within the threshold distance of any outputdevices of the first device type. For example, based on comparison witha database of output devices, the media guidance application maydetermine that the first user is located more than a three footthreshold distance away from the rear driver side speaker and that noother speakers integrated into the car are closer to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates fordisplay an indication of an upcoming media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may display on a screen in the dashboard of a cartext that Roar, by Katy Perry” is starting soon. The media guidanceapplication may receive a first indication of interest from the firstuser in the upcoming media asset as the first user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a user input usingthe touchscreen of a mobile device indicating that the first user is“highly interested” in the media asset. The media guidance applicationmay receive a second indication of interest from the second user in theupcoming media asset as the second user preference. For example, themedia guidance application may receive a user input using thetouchscreen of a mobile device indicating that the first user is “notinterested” in the media asset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve, frommetadata associated with the media asset, a title of the media asset.For example, the media guidance application may extract from metadataassociated with the media asset the string, “Roar” from a titleparameter. The media guidance application may then generate for displayon the alert the title of the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may generate for display the title “Roar” with thealert.

It should be noted the systems and/or methods described above may beapplied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods and/orapparatuses.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a media guidance applicationadjusting output of a media asset based on user preferences, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a media guidance applicationgenerating an alert to access a media asset on a different device typebased on user preferences, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a display screen for use inaccessing media content in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 4 shows another illustrative example of a display screen usedaccess media content in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for adjusting output ofmedia assets based on user preferences, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 shows an illustrative example of pseudocode for adjusting outputof media assets based on user preferences, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for generating an alert toaccess a media asset on a different device type based on userpreferences, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 shows an illustrative example of pseudocode for generating analert to access a media asset on a different device type based on userpreferences, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining thelocation of a user and an output device near the user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are presented for a media guidance application thatadjusts output parameters of media assets delivered to output devicesbased on user preferences of users near the output devices. For example,the media guidance application may adjust the volume to be higher at aspeaker near a first user who enjoys a particular media asset and lowerat a speaker near a second user who dislikes the media asset. As anotherexample, the media guidance application may determine that a user enjoysa media asset, but is too far from an output device to view or listen tothe media asset or that other users do not enjoy the media asset. Inthis instance, the media guidance application may alert the user to usea different output device type to view and/or listen to the media asset(e.g., on a mobile phone). By adjusting the output of devices near usersbased on their individual preferences, the present systems and methodscan optimize each user's enjoyment of the same media asset in a sharedlistening and/or viewing experience.

As referred to herein, a “media guidance application,” or an“interactive media guidance application” or, sometimes, a “mediaguidance application” or a “guidance application” is an application thatallows a user to consume, and/or navigate to, media assets. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may be provided as an onlineapplication (i.e., provided on a website), or as a stand-aloneapplication on a server, user device, etc. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may be executed on the first device and asecond device simultaneously, or at a location remote from either device(e.g., a remote server), or any suitable combination. In someembodiments, control circuitry installed on various devices andplatforms may execute the media guidance application, as described inmore detail below. In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationand/or any instructions for performing any of the embodiments discussedherein may be encoded on computer readable media. Computer readablemedia includes any media capable of storing data. The computer readablemedia may be transitory, including, but not limited to, propagatingelectrical or electromagnetic signals, or may be non-transitoryincluding, but not limited to, volatile and nonvolatile computer memoryor storage devices such as a hard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD,media card, register memory, processor caches, Random Access Memory(“RAM”), etc.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a media guidance applicationadjusting output of a media asset based on user preferences, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, FIG. 1shows car 100 with a plurality of output devices (e.g., speakers 106 and112). The output devices are associated with positions (e.g., rearpassenger side seat 104 and front driver side seat 110) that areoccupied by users (e.g., users 102 and 108).

The media guidance application determines a first user is at a firstposition, where the first position corresponds to a first output device.For example, the media guidance application may receive an indicationfrom a radio-frequency identification (“RFID”) reader in the rearpassenger side door of car 100 that it has detected an RFID chipcorresponding to user 102. The media guidance application may thendetermine that since user 102 is seated in rear passenger side seat 104of car 100, the position of user 102 corresponds to speaker 106 in therear passenger side door.

As referred to herein, the term “position” should be understood to meana condition encompassing a location or set of locations. As referred toherein, the term “location” is a specific place occupied by a user. Insome embodiments, the position may be defined by a range of GPS values(e.g., encompassing GPS coordinates for specific locations a user may belocated). Alternatively or additionally, a position may be defined by areference to the locations in a specific area. For example, a room(e.g., a specific area) may be divided into locations where a user maybe (e.g., the couch, recliner chair, etc.) each designated with acorresponding position (e.g., left wall, right wall, etc.) which may mapto an output device (e.g., the left wall speaker, right wall speaker,etc.). In some other embodiments, the user may be located in aparticular seat (e.g., a location) among a set of seats (e.g., aposition). For example, the location may refer to a particular seat in acar, airplane, theater, or stadium, of which several seats are groupedas the same position (e.g., a section of a baseball stadium). In yetanother embodiment, the position may account for a third dimension. Forexample, the position may be a particular section of a volume defining aspace (e.g., the upper deck of a baseball stadium and the lower deck maybe separate positions so that a user sitting directly above another useris not at the same position). Alternatively or additionally, a positionmay be defined by its proximity to one or more output devices within alocation. For example, a room may include a plurality of output devices(e.g., speakers) which each have a corresponding position, where eachposition contains a range of locations that define the position (e.g.,based on proximity to a particular speaker).

The media guidance application determines that a second user is at asecond position that corresponds to a second output device. For example,the media guidance application may receive an indication that a deviceassociated with user 108 is connected to a port located near the frontdriver side seat 110 of car 100. The media guidance application may thendetermine that since user 108 is seated in the front driver side seat110, the position of user 108 corresponds to speaker 112 in the frontdriver side seat door.

The media guidance application receives a first user preference of thefirst user and a second user preference of a second user. For example,the media guidance application may receive first user preference 114 formusic by the artist, “Justin Bieber,” and second user preference 116 formusic by the artist, “Miles Davis.” Likewise, the media guidanceapplication may receive, from a second user input by the second user,the second user preference. For example, the media guidance applicationmay receive a user input from a touch screen on a mobile device thatuser 102 prefers “classic rock” songs. Likewise, the media guidanceapplication may receive a user input from a keypad of a mobile devicethat second user 108 prefers “hip-hop” songs. Alternatively oradditionally, the media guidance application may access a first userprofile associated with the first user and a second user profileassociated with the second user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may access the profiles on a website based on a link to thewebsite associated with each user stored in storage (e.g., storage asdescribed in FIG. 5). The media guidance application may then retrievethe first user preference from the first user profile and the seconduser preference from the second user profile. For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve the user preference of users 102 and108 from posts on their respective user profiles.

The media guidance application receives a media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may receive the song, “Sorry,” by JustinBieber from a content provider such as a radio broadcaster or an on-linestreaming media provider. For example, the media guidance applicationmay be implemented on a car audio system (e.g., in car 100) or otheruser device (e.g., any of the user equipment devices as described inFIGS. 5-6 below) that outputs audio content via one or more speakers(e.g., speakers 106 and 112), and receive one or more media assets forpresentation to a group of users.

As referred to herein, the term “user preference” should be understoodto mean any input to the media guidance application related to interests(or lack thereof) of the user in one or more media assets. In someembodiments, the user preference may be any data relating to the mediaasset. For example, the user preference may be a post on social media bythe user relating to the title, artist, or lyrics of the media asset.Alternatively or additionally, the user preference may include favorableand unfavorable designations of data relating to the media asset. Forexample, the phrase “I love action movies” is a user preference for“action movies” while “I hate action movies” is not. In anotherembodiment, the user preference may be an implicit user preference basedon a relationship between an explicit user preference and the mediaasset. For example, the user may input that the genre “rock” music issomething they enjoy and the media guidance application may interpretthis as an implicit user preference for “punk” music since the two arerelated. In yet another embodiment, the user preference may be relatedto past viewing and/or listening preferences. For example, if the userhas listened to “rock” music for 40 straight days, the media guidanceapplication may determine from a listening history of the user that“rock” is a user preference. In another embodiment, the user preferencemay be a combination of user preferences, which may include weightingsof each preference. For example, a user may express a preference for“action movies” but dislikes the actor “Tom Cruise” more, such that themovie “Mission Impossible,” which is an action movie with Tom Cruise,may not be preferred by the user.

The media guidance application then determines whether to present themedia asset to the first user based on the first user preferencecorresponding to a characteristic of the media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that the received media asset,“Sorry,” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., a characteristic ofthe media asset). The media guidance application may then determinebased on character matching or other means of comparing two strings oftext that the characteristic (e.g., “Justin Bieber”) matches first userpreference 114 (e.g., music by the artist “Justin Bieber”). Likewise,the media guidance application may determine whether the second userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the receivedmedia asset, “Sorry” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., acharacteristic of the media asset). The media guidance application maythen determine based on character matching or other means of comparingtwo strings of text that the characteristic (e.g., “Justin Bieber”) doesnot match second user preference 116 (e.g., music by the artist

“Miles Davis”).

As referred to herein, the phrase “characteristic of the media asset”should be understood to mean any descriptive term relating to the mediaasset. In some embodiments, the characteristic of the media asset may bea descriptive term relating to the content of the media asset. Forexample, the characteristic may be the title, genre, artist, year,length, country of origin, content rating, a keyword, a lyric, and/orany other information about a media asset, which may be used todistinguish one media asset from another media asset. In anotherembodiment, the characteristic of the media asset may be a descriptiveterm relating to the file or signal containing the media asset. Forexample, the characteristic may be an encoding format (e.g., MPEG) orfile size (e.g., less than 3 megabytes).

In some embodiments, to determine whether to present the media asset tothe first user based on the first user preference corresponding to acharacteristic of the media asset, the media guidance application mayreceive metadata from a content source for the media asset. For example,the media guidance application may receive metadata for an upcoming songon the station “FM93.1, Current Pop Hits.” The media guidanceapplication may then compare the metadata for the media asset to thefirst user preference. For example, the metadata may includecharacteristics of the upcoming song, such as the title and artist. Themedia guidance application may compare this to the user preference(e.g., user preference 114 and 116). The media guidance application maythen determine whether the metadata for the media asset matches thefirst user preference. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that since the artist of the song is not “Justin Bieber,” themedia asset does not match the first user preference.

Furthermore, in some embodiments, when determining to present the mediaasset to the first user (e.g., user 102) based on whether the first userpreference (e.g., first user preference 114) corresponds to thecharacteristic of the media asset, the media guidance application maycompare the characteristic of the media asset with the first userpreference. For example, the media guidance application may compare auser preference for “rock” music to characteristics of the media asset,like the title and genre of the media asset. The media guidanceapplication may, based on comparing the characteristic of the mediaasset with the first user preference, assign a first similarity valuefor the media asset and the first user preference. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that the user preference for“rock” corresponds to a similarity rating of 9 out of 10 for the song,“Smoke on the Water.” The media guidance application may compare thefirst similarity value to a threshold similarity value. For example, themedia guidance application may compare the 9 out of 10 similarity to athreshold similarity for presenting the media asset, such as 7 out of10. The media guidance application may, in response to determining thefirst similarity value exceeds the threshold similarity value, determineto present the media asset to the first user. For example, since 9 isgreater than 7, the media guidance application may determine to present“Smoke on the Water” to the first user.

The media guidance application, in response to both determining topresent the media asset to the first user and determining that the firstuser is at the first position, determines to adjust an output parameterfor the media asset at the first output device. For example, upondetermining that user 102 likes songs by Justin Bieber and “Sorry” is asong by Justin Bieber, and that user 102 is seated in rear passengerside seat 104, the media guidance application may increase the volume ofrear passenger side speaker 106 to be louder so that the user can enjoythe song. Alternatively or additionally, the media guidance application,in response to both determining that the second user preference does notcorrespond to presenting the media asset and determining that the seconduser is at the second position, determines not to adjust the outputparameter for the media asset at the second output device. For example,upon determining that user 108 does not have a preference for songs byJustin Bieber since “Miles Davis” is a different artist, and that user108 is seated in front driver side seat 110, the media guidanceapplication may determine not to increase the volume of the front driverside speaker 112, since user 108 has no preference for the song,“Sorry.” Thus, by adjusting the output parameter of a media assetselected from the pooled user preferences of users (e.g., passengers incar 100) based on each individual user's preferences, the media guidanceapplication enhances a user's enjoyment of media assets he or she likes,while minimizing a user's displeasure from media assets he or shedislikes.

As referred to herein, the phrase, “an output parameter” should beunderstood to mean any property or state of an output device that can bemanipulated by the media guidance application. In some embodiments, theoutput parameter may be a property of the audio and/or video beingoutput. For example, the output parameter may be a color, shape,brightness, resolution, volume, an equalizer setting (e.g., bass/treblebalance), or version of the media asset (e.g., censored). In anotherembodiment, the output parameter may be the state of an output device.For example, the output parameter may be whether or not a output deviceis turned on. In yet another embodiment, the output parameter may be acombination of output parameters. For example, the output parameter maybe volume of a speaker and brightness of a display screen.

The media guidance application may adjust numerous different outputparameters. In some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine the output parameter is a volume increase of the media asset.For example, the media guidance application may maintain a stored listof output parameters for different output devices and their currentvalues (e.g., in storage as described further in FIG. 5 below) anddetermine based on user preferences to adjust certain values, such asincreasing the volume. The media guidance application may determine anamount of the volume increase based on the first user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that since user102 expresses a particularly strong interest in the media asset,“Sorry,” to increase the volume by 20 dB. The media guidance applicationmay transmit to the first output device an indication of the amount ofvolume increase. For example, the media guidance application maytransmit a data packet to a receiver or amplifier to increase the volumefor speaker 106 near user 102 by 20 dB.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine theoutput parameter is a version of the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may maintain a stored list of output parameters fordifferent output devices and their current values (e.g., in storage asdescribed further in FIG. 5 below) and determine based on userpreferences to adjust certain values, such as whether media assetscontaining inappropriate content should be presented. The media guidanceapplication may determine from the characteristic of the media assetthat the media asset contains inappropriate content. For example, themedia guidance application may determine a media asset contains aBoolean for inappropriate content assigned a value “true.” The mediaguidance application may, based on the first user preference, requestthe alternate version of the media asset to transmit to the first outputdevice. For example, if first user preference 114 is for censored mediaassets, the media guidance application may request a censored version ofthe media asset (e.g., from the content source) to output for user 102.

In addition to the techniques discussed above, the media guidanceapplication may determine the position of a user in a number of ways.For example, the media guidance application may receive a location ofthe first user and use the location to determine the first position. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive an indication from apressure sensor that user 102 is sitting in the rear passenger side seatof a car, which may be assigned an arbitrary position value “8.” Themedia guidance application may access a database containing a pluralityof output devices and positions corresponding to each of the pluralityof output devices, where the database includes the first position of thefirst output device and the second position of the second output device.For example, the media guidance application may access the databasewhich may be stored locally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotelyat a media guidance data source (e.g., media guidance data source 618)accessible via a communications network (e.g., communications network614), as described further in FIGS. 5-6 below. For example, the mediaguidance application may access a database organized as a table whereeach row contains a different output device (e.g., speaker 106 and 112)and each column contains coordinates and/or indicators of position ofeach output device.

In another example, the media guidance application may receive a packetcontaining information relating to the first user. For example, themedia guidance application receive a data packet containing a stringuser_ID=“John123,” and a string location=“backseat.” The media guidanceapplication may analyze the information contained in the packet todetermine an identity of user 102 and the location of user 102. Forexample, the media guidance application may analyze the variablesreceived in the data packet and determine that user 102 “Sean” issitting in rear passenger side seat 104 of car 100.

The media guidance application may retrieve a first value for the firstposition from a first field in the database and a second value for thesecond position from a second field in the database. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve information that “speaker 1,”which corresponds to rear passenger side door speaker 106, has a valueof “5” and that “speaker 2,” which corresponds to front driver side doorspeaker 112, has a value of “2.” The media guidance application maycompare the first value and the second value to the location of thefirst user. For example, the media guidance application may compare theretrieved values “2” and “5” to “4.” The media guidance application maydetermine that the first value corresponds to a shorter distance to thelocation of the first user. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine based on a rule-set that user 102 is located closer torear passenger side door speaker 106.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates fordisplay an indication of an upcoming media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may display on a screen in the dashboard of car 100text that “Roar, by Katy Perry” is starting soon. The media guidanceapplication may receive a first indication of interest from the firstuser in the upcoming media asset as the first user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a user selection ofa “thumbs-up” icon on the screen of a mobile device indicating that user102 is interested in the media asset. The media guidance application mayreceive a second indication of interest from the second user in theupcoming media asset as the second user preference. For example, themedia guidance application may receive a user selection of a“thumbs-down” icon on the screen of a mobile device indicating that user108 is not interested in the media asset.

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a media guidance applicationgenerating an alert to access a media asset on a different device typebased on user preferences, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. For example, FIG. 2 shows car 200 with a plurality of outputdevices including some of different output device types (e.g., speaker206 and mobile device 216). The output devices are associated withpositions (e.g., middle seat 204 and middle driver side seat 210) thatare occupied by users (e.g., users 202 and 208).

The media guidance application determines a first user and a second userare both associated with a first output device, where the first outputdevice has a first output device type. The first output device type maybe integrated speakers (e.g., speaker 206) or integrated display screensin a car, room, or other location. For example, the media guidanceapplication may receive an indication from an RFID reader in the reardriver side door of car 200 that it has detected an RFID chipcorresponding to user 202. The media guidance application may thendetermine that since user 202 is seated in middle seat 204 of car 200,the position of user 202 corresponds to speaker 206 in the rear driverside door. The media guidance application may also receive an indicationthat a device associated with user 208 is connected to a port locatednear the rear driver side door of car 200. The media guidanceapplication may then determine that since user 208 is located near therear driver side door, the position of user 208 corresponds to the samespeaker (e.g., speaker 206) in the rear driver side door.

As referred to herein, the phrase “output device type” should beunderstood to mean a device that is differentiated from other devices bya general category. In some embodiments, the output device type may be atype of mobile devices. For example, the output device type may be amobile phone, or a tablet. In other embodiments, the output device typemay be a type of structurally fixed device. For example, the outputdevice type may be a speaker integrated into a car door or stage. Insome embodiments, one output device may be a personal listening device,while another is not. For example, one output device may be speakersthat multiple people can hear; while another output device may beheadphones connected to a mobile phone that only one user can hear(e.g., a personal listening device). Alternatively or additionally, someoutput devices may be both personal listening devices and publiclistening devices depending on a mode of operation. For example, amobile phone with a speaker may be used to output a media asset to agroup of users, or when operating with headphones to only one user. Insome embodiments, the media guidance application may prevent output inone or more modes of an output device. For example, if a second userlocated near the first user does not have a preference for a particularmedia asset, the media guidance application may disable output of themedia asset through speakers of a mobile phone of the first user andonly allow listening through headphones.

The media guidance application receives a first user preference of thefirst user and a second user preference of a second user. For example,the media guidance application may receive first user preference 212 formusic of the genre, “Pop,” and second user preference 214 for music ofthe genre, “Big Band.” Likewise, the media guidance application mayreceive, from a first user input by user 202, the first user preference.For example, the media guidance application may receive a user inputfrom a touch screen on a mobile device that user 202 prefers “90s”songs. Similarly, the media guidance application may receive, from asecond user input by user 208, the second user preference. For example,the media guidance application may receive a user input from a keypad ofa mobile device that user 208 prefers “70s” songs. Alternatively oradditionally, the media guidance application may access a first userprofile associated with the first user and a second user profileassociated with the second user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may access the profiles on a website based on a link to thewebsite associated with users 202 and 208 stored in storage (e.g., instorage as described further in FIG. 5 below). The media guidanceapplication may then retrieve the first user preference from the firstuser profile and the second user preference from the second userprofile. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve theuser preference of users 202 and 208 from posts on their respective userprofiles.

The media guidance application receives a media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may receive the song, “Roar” by Katy Perryfrom a content provider such as a radio broadcaster or an on-linestreaming media provider. For example, the media guidance applicationmay be implemented on a car audio system or other user device thatoutputs audio content via one or more speakers (e.g., speaker 206), andreceive one or more media assets for presentation to a group of users(e.g., users 202 and 208).

The media guidance application, in response to both determining that thefirst user preference does correspond to presenting the media asset andthat the second user preference does not correspond to presenting themedia asset, generates an alert notifying the first user to access asecond output device to access the media asset, wherein the secondoutput device has a second output device type. The second output devicemay be a personal computer, mobile phone, multi-media console in a carwith an input for headphones, or an mp3 player. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that “Roar” by Katy Perry is a songof the “Pop” genre, but not of the “Big Band” genre. Since the mediaguidance application determined that “Roar” corresponds to first userpreference 212, but not to second user preference 214, the mediaguidance application may generate an alert. For example, the mediaguidance application may send a text message to a mobile device (e.g.,mobile phone 216) of the first user, notifying the first user that sincethe second user does not have a preference for “Roar,” in order tolisten to the song the first user should plug in headphones to mobiledevice 216, which will output the song.

As referred to herein, the term “alert” refers to any way to notify auser of an upcoming or currently playing media asset. In someembodiments, the alert may be auditory. For example, the media guidanceapplication may output through a speaker audio containing the alert. Inother embodiments, the alert may be visual. For example, the alert maybe a text message transmitted to a mobile device of the user. In yetanother embodiment, the alert may contain both audio and visual elementsto alert the user, such as the flash of an LED light near a user andaudio stating the title of the upcoming song.

In some embodiments, to determine whether to present the media asset tothe first user based on the first user preference corresponding to acharacteristic of the media asset, the media guidance application maycompare the first user preference and the second user preference to acharacteristic of the media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare a characteristic of the song “Roar” by KatyPerry, such as the genre “Pop” to first user preference 212 for “Pop”songs and second user preference 214 for “Big Band” songs. The mediaguidance application may then determine that the first user preferencecorresponds to presenting the media asset and the second user preferencecorresponds to not presenting the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that since first user preference 212exactly matches the genre of “Roar,” and that second user preference 214does not match the genre or any other characteristic of “Roar,” that“Roar” should be presented to the first user (e.g., user 202) and notthe second user (e.g., user 208).

Furthermore, in some embodiments, when determining to present the mediaasset to the first user based on whether the first user preferencecorresponds to the characteristic of the media asset, the media guidanceapplication may receive metadata from a content source for the mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may receive andextract metadata for an upcoming song on the station “FM93.1, CurrentPop Hits.” The media guidance application may compare the metadata forthe media asset to the first user preference and the second userpreference. For example, the media guidance application may extract thestring, “Pop” from a genre parameter and compare it to first userpreference 212 for “Pop” and second user preference 214 for “Big Band.”The media guidance application may determine the metadata for the mediaasset matches the first user preference and does not match the seconduser preference. For example, based on a pre-defined rule set ofassociations between various terms, the media guidance application maydetermine that first user preference 212 for “Pop” matches the genreexactly of the song “Roar” but that second user preference 214 for “BigBand” does not match the genre for “Roar.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine theposition of the first and second user correspond to the same outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may receive a firstlocation of the first user and a second location of the second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive an indication from apressure sensor that user 202 is sitting in middle seat 204 of car 200,which may be assigned an arbitrary position value “4.” Additionally, themedia guidance application may receive an indication from a pressuresensor that user 208 is sitting in middle driver side seat 210 of car200, which may be assigned an arbitrary value “5.” The media guidanceapplication may access a database containing a plurality of outputdevices and positions corresponding to each of the plurality of outputdevices, where the database includes the first position of the firstoutput device and the second position of the second output device. Forexample, the media guidance application may access the database whichmay be stored locally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotely at amedia guidance data source (e.g., media guidance data source 618)accessible via a communications network (e.g., communications network614), as described further in FIGS. 5-6 below. For example, the mediaguidance application may access the database organized as a table whereeach row contains a different output device and each column containscoordinates and/or indicators of position of each output device.

The media guidance application may retrieve a first value for the firstposition from a first field in the database. For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve that “speaker 1” corresponding tospeaker 206 integrated into the middle driver side door has thearbitrary position value “5.” The media guidance application may comparethe first value to the first location of the first user and the firstvalue to the second location of the second user. For example, the mediaguidance application may compare the retrieved value “5” to the locationof user 202, “4” for and the location of user 208, “5.” The mediaguidance application may determine that both the first user and thesecond user are within a threshold distance from the first outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe closest output device to locations “4” and “5” is the first outputdevice (e.g., speaker 206) and no other output devices are closer toeither user 202 or user 208.

In some other embodiments, the media guidance application may determinethat the second user's position corresponds to the first output device,while the first user's position does not correspond to any outputdevice. For example, the media guidance application may receive a firstlocation of the first user and a second location of the second user. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive an indication fromRFID readers in middle seat 204 of car 200 and middle driver side seat210 that RFID chips have been detected corresponding to user 202 anduser 208, respectively. The media guidance application may determinefrom the second location that the second user is within a thresholddistance of the first output device. For example, based on comparisonwith a database of output devices and their respective positions, themedia guidance application may determine that based on the location ofuser 208, user 208 is located within a three foot threshold distancefrom speaker 206. The media guidance application may determine from thefirst location that the first user is not within the threshold distanceof the first output device and that the first user is not within thethreshold distance of any output devices of the first device type. Forexample, based on comparison with the database of output devices andtheir respective positions, the media guidance application may determinethat based on the location of user 202 and the position of each speaker,user 202 is located more than a three foot threshold distance away fromspeaker 206 and that no other speakers integrated into the car arecloser to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates fordisplay an indication of an upcoming media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may display on a screen in the dashboard of car 200text that Roar, by Katy Perry” is starting soon. The media guidanceapplication may receive a first indication of interest from the firstuser in the upcoming media asset as the first user preference. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a user input usingthe touchscreen of a mobile device indicating that user 202 is “highlyinterested” in the media asset. The media guidance application mayreceive a second indication of interest from the second user in theupcoming media asset as the second user preference. For example, themedia guidance application may receive a user input using thetouchscreen of a mobile device indicating that user 208 is “notinterested” in the media asset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve, frommetadata associated with the media asset, a title of the media asset.For example, the media guidance application may extract from metadataassociated with the media asset the string, “Roar” identified as a titleparameter. The media guidance application may then generate for displayon the alert the title of the media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may generate for display the title “Roar” with thealert.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 3-4 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 3-4 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 3-4 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 3 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 300arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 300 may include grid 302 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 304, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 306, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 302 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 308, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 310. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 310 may be provided inprogram information region 312. Region 312 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 302 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 314, recorded content listing 316, andInternet content listing 318. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 300 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings314, 316, and 318 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 302 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 302. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 320. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 320.)

Display 300 may also include video region 322, and options region 326.Video region 322 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 322 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 302. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 326 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 326 may be part of display 300 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 326 may concern features related to program listings in grid 302or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 6. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 4. Video mosaic display 400 includes selectable options 402 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 400, television listings option 404 isselected, thus providing listings 406, 408, 410, and 412 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 400 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 408 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 414 and text portion 416.Media portion 414 and/or text portion 416 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 414 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 400 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 406 islarger than listings 408, 410, and 412), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 5 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 500. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 6.User equipment device 500 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 502. I/O path 502 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 504, which includesprocessing circuitry 506 and storage 508. Control circuitry 504 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 502. I/O path 502 may connect control circuitry 504 (andspecifically processing circuitry 506) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 504 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 506. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 508). Specifically, control circuitry 504 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 504 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 504 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 504 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 6). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 508 thatis part of control circuitry 504. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 508 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 6, may be used to supplementstorage 508 or instead of storage 508.

Control circuitry 504 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 504 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 500. Circuitry 504 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 508 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 500, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 508.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 504 using user inputinterface 510. User input interface 510 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 512 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500. For example, display 512 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 510may be integrated with or combined with display 512. Display 512 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 512 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 512 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 512.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry504. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 504.Speakers 514 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 512 may be played throughspeakers 514. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers514.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 500. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage508), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 504 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 508 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 504 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 510. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 510 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 500 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 500. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 504 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 504) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 500. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 500.Equipment device 500 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 510 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 500 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 510.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 500 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 504). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 504 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 504. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 504. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 500 of FIG. 5 can be implemented in system 600 ofFIG. 6 as user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604,wireless user communications device 606, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 5 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, or awireless user communications device 606. For example, user televisionequipment 602 may, like some user computer equipment 604, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 604 may, like some television equipment 602, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 604, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 606.

In system 600, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 6 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 602, user computer equipment 604, wireless user communicationsdevice 606) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 614.Namely, user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, andwireless user communications device 606 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 614 via communications paths 608, 610, and 612, respectively.Communications network 614 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 608, 610, and 612 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 612 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 6 it is awireless path and paths 608 and 610 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 608, 610, and 612, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 614.

System 600 includes content source 616 and media guidance data source618 coupled to communications network 614 via communication paths 620and 622, respectively. Paths 620 and 622 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 608, 610,and 612. Communications with the content source 616 and media guidancedata source 618 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 616 and media guidance data source 618 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 616 and 618 withuser equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 are shown as throughcommunications network 614, in some embodiments, sources 616 and 618 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 608, 610, and 612.

Content source 616 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 616 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 616 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 616 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 618 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 618may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 618 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 618 mayprovide user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 508, and executedby control circuitry 504 of a user equipment device 500. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 504 of user equipment device 500and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 618) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 618), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 618 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices602, 604, and 606 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 600 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 6.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 614.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 616 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 602 and user computer equipment 604may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 606 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 614. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 616 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 618. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, and wirelessuser communications device 606. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 604 or wireless usercommunications device 606 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 604. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 614. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 5.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for adjusting output ofmedia assets based on user preferences, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. For example, a media guidance applicationimplementing process 700 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (FIG.5). It should be noted that process 700 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6.

Process 700 begins at 702, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) a first user is ata first position, wherein the first position corresponds to a firstoutput device. For example, the media guidance application may receive(e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) an indication from anRFID reader that it has detected an RFID chip corresponding to the user.The media guidance application may extract (e.g., via control circuitry504 (FIG. 5)) information from the indication regarding the position ofthe user, such as GPS coordinates or any other identifier which themedia guidance application can then compare (e.g., via control circuitry504 (FIG. 5)) to the positions of output devices. The media guidanceapplication may determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5))based on retrieving and comparing the positions of output devices from adatabase stored in memory (e.g., in storage 508) that the first user(e.g., user 102) is closest to a first output device (e.g., speakers106).

Process 700 continues to 704, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that a second useris at a second position that corresponds to a second output device. Step704 may proceed in the same manner as step 702 outlined above. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) based on retrieving and comparing the positionsof output devices from a database stored in memory (e.g., in storage508) that the second user (e.g., user 108) is closest to a second outputdevice (e.g., speakers 112).

Process 700 continues to 706, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a first userpreference of the first user and a second user preference of the seconduser. For example, the media guidance application may receive (e.g., viacommunications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a first user preference for musicby the artist, “Justin Bieber,” and a second user preference for musicby the artist, “Miles Davis.”

Process 700 continues to 708, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a media asset.For example, the media guidance application (e.g., via communicationsnetwork 614 (FIG. 6)) may receive the song, “Sorry,” by Justin Bieberfrom a content provider (e.g., content source 616 (FIG. 6)) such as aradio broadcaster or an on-line streaming media provider. For example,the media guidance application may be implemented on a car audio systemor other user device that outputs audio content via one or morespeakers, and receive one or more media assets for presentation to agroup of users.

Process 700 continues to 710, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) whether to presentthe media asset to the first user based on the first user preferencecorresponding to a characteristic of the media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may determine (e.g., via control circuitry504 (FIG. 5)) that the received media asset, “Sorry,” is a song byartist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., a characteristic of the media asset). Themedia guidance application may then determine (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) based on character matching or other means ofcomparing two strings of text that the characteristic (e.g., “JustinBieber”) matches the user preference (e.g., music by the artist “JustinBieber”).

If the media guidance application determines to not present the mediaasset to the first user, process 700 returns to 708, where the mediaguidance application may receive (e.g., via communications network 614(FIG. 6)) another media asset. For example, as described above in step708, the media guidance application (e.g., via communications network614 (FIG. 6)) may receive another song, “Roar,” by Katy Perry from thesame or a different content provider (e.g., content source 616 (FIG. 6))such as a radio broadcaster or an on-line streaming media provider. Insome embodiments, the media guidance application may continue to receivemedia assets from content sources (e.g., content source 616 (FIG. 6))until a match to the first user preference is found. In otherembodiments, the media guidance application may receive a media assetthat corresponds to a user preference of the second user if process 700returns to 708. In still other embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may maintain a playback history stored in a database (e.g.,in storage 508 (FIG. 5)) with a count of how many songs have matchedpreferences of a plurality of users and attempt a greater of number oftimes to present songs matching a user characteristic if that usercharacteristic has been matched fewer times than other usercharacteristics. The database may be reset after a listening session(e.g., after one continuous car trip) or be maintained for some periodof time (e.g., two weeks). For example, if the media guidanceapplication has received and presented 15 “Pop” songs and only 2 “BigBand” songs, the media guidance application may skip over some received“Pop” songs in an effort to present more “Big Band” songs to try toequalize the number of songs for each user's preference.

If the media guidance application determines to present the media assetto the first user, process 700 proceeds to 712, where the media guidanceapplication determines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5))whether the second user preference corresponds to the characteristic ofthe media asset. For example, the media guidance application (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) may determine that the received mediaasset, “Sorry” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., acharacteristic of the media asset). The media guidance application maythen determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) based oncharacter matching or other means of comparing two strings of text thatthe characteristic (e.g., “Justin Bieber”) does not match the userpreference (e.g., music by the artist “Miles Davis”). In embodimentswhere process 700 is executed for more than two users, step 712 occursfor each user after a characteristic of a media asset is found to matcha user preference of one user.

If the media guidance application determines the second user preferencedoes not correspond to the characteristic of the media asset, process700 continues to 716, where the media guidance application adjusts(e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) an output parameter for themedia asset at the first output device and does not adjust the outputparameter for the media asset at the second output device. For example,upon determining that the user likes songs by Justin Bieber and “Sorry”is a song by Justin Bieber, and that the user is seated in the reardriver side seat, the media guidance application may increase (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) the volume of the rear driver sidespeaker to be louder so that the user can enjoy the song. Continuingwith the example, the media guidance application may, in response toboth determining that the second user preference does not correspond topresenting the media asset and determining that the second user is atthe second position, determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG.5)) not to adjust the output parameter for the media asset at the secondoutput device. For example, upon determining (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that the user does not have a preference forsongs by Justin Bieber since “Miles Davis” is a different artist, andthat the user is seated in the front passenger side seat, the mediaguidance application may determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504(FIG. 5)) not to increase the volume of the front passenger seatspeaker, since the user has no preference for the song, “Sorry.” Inembodiments with a greater number of users, the media guidanceapplication may adjust the output at each output device based on thepreferences of a user or users near each output device.

If the media guidance application determines the second user preferencedoes correspond to the characteristic of the media asset, process 700continues to 714, where the media guidance application adjusts (e.g.,via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) an output parameter for the mediaasset at the first output device and the second device. For example,upon determining (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that theuser likes songs by Justin Bieber and “Sorry” is a song by JustinBieber, and that the user is seated in the rear driver side seat, themedia guidance application may increase (e.g., via control circuitry 504(FIG. 5)) the volume of both the rear driver side speaker and the frontpassenger side speaker so both the first and second users can enjoy thesong.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 7 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 7 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. For example, multiple instances ofprocess 700 may be executed for each of a plurality of users at a partyor in a car to determine the location of each of the users and an outputdevice they are each near. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 5-6 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 7.

The pseudocode in FIG. 8 describes a process to adjust output of mediaassets based on user preferences. It will be evident to one skilled inthe art that the process described by the pseudocode in FIG. 8 may beimplemented in any number of programming languages and a variety ofdifferent hardware, and that the style and format should not beconstrued as limiting, but rather a general template of the steps andprocedures that would be consistent with code used to implement someembodiments of this disclosure.

At line 801, control circuitry 504 initializes a subroutine to determinea first user is at a first position and that a second user is at asecond position. For example, in some embodiments control circuitry 504may copy instructions from non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storagedevice 508) into RAM or into the cache for processing circuitry 506during the initialization stage. For example, a separate routine maydetermine the locations of the first and second users (e.g., as in FIG.11 below) and then pass the results as parameters to the pseudocode(e.g., as inputs to a method). At line 803, control circuitry 504executes a routine to determine that the first position corresponds to afirst output device and the second position corresponds to a secondoutput device. For example, control circuitry 504 may access a databasewhich may be stored locally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotelyat a media guidance data source (e.g., media guidance data source 618)accessible via a communications network (e.g., communications network614), as described further in FIGS. 5-6 above. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may access a database organized as a table where each rowcontains a different output device (e.g., speaker 106 and 112) and eachcolumn contains coordinates and/or indicators of position of each outputdevice. Control circuitry 504 may, as part of the routine, execute adatabase query language script, such as SQL, to retrieve data fromparticular expressions in the table such that control circuitry 504 cancompare the retrieved output coordinates for an output device to theuser's location, as described above in FIG. 7.

At line 805, control circuitry 504 receives a first user preference ofthe first user and a second user preference of a second user. In someembodiments, the preferences may be retrieved from memory. Controlcircuitry 504 may receive these amounts by receiving, for example, apointer to an array of strings in a user profile containing “Favoriteartists” of the user. In some other embodiments, control circuitry 504may receive, via user input using user input interface 510, the userpreference directly from the user. For example, control circuitry 504may receive a user input of the string “Bon Jovi” using a keypad on amobile device.

At line 807, control circuitry 504 receives a media asset. For example,control circuitry 504 may receive a pointer to a location in an indexdata structure containing links to media assets that are currentlyavailable from different content sources. As another example, controlcircuitry 504 may receive a media asset stream from a content source(e.g., an MPEG stream), which may contain an event information table orother identifying data embedded with media asset.

At line 809, control circuitry 504 executes a routine to determinewhether to present the media asset to the first user based on the firstuser preference corresponding to a characteristic of the media asset.For example, control circuitry 504 may extract a characteristic of areceived media asset, from metadata embedded in a media asset streamfrom a content source or from a table or other data structure storedeither locally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotely at a mediaguidance data source (e.g., media guidance data source 618) accessiblevia a communications network (e.g., communications network 614). Controlcircuitry 504 may then compare the characteristic of the media asset tothe received first user preferences, as described above in detail inFIG. 7.

At line 811, control circuitry 504 executes a routine to determinewhether the second user preference corresponds to the characteristic ofthe media asset. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 may performthe same routine as described above in line 809 for each user determinedto be in a certain area (e.g., by recursively calling the routinedescribed in line 809 until each user's preference has been compared tothe characteristic of the media asset). In other embodiments, controlcircuitry 504 may execute a second distinct routine to compare thecharacteristic of the media asset to the received second userpreferences, as described above in detail in FIG. 7.

At line 813, control circuitry 504 iterates through the various receivedmedia assets, if only a single media asset has been received, the loopwill only execute once. This loop may be implemented in multiplefashions depending on the choice of hardware and software language usedto implement the algorithm of FIG. 8; for example, this may beimplemented as part of a “for” or “while” loop.

At line 814, control circuitry 504 stores whether the first userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset as aBoolean variable “A.” In some embodiments, the variable will be storedas part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of Booleanvariable A may be obtained through appropriate accessor methods. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may call a function to perform acomparison of the similarity of the user preference and thecharacteristic of the media asset, which may be an output of theroutines described in lines 811 and 813 above, to a threshold valuestored in memory (e.g., storage 508). For example, based on whether thesimilarity of the first user preference and the characteristic of themedia asset meet the threshold value, control circuitry 504 assignseither a “true” or “false” value to Boolean variable A.

At line 815, control circuitry 504 stores whether the second userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset as aBoolean variable “B.” In some embodiments, the variable will be storedas part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of Booleanvariable B may be obtained through appropriate accessor methods. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may call a function to perform acomparison of the similarity of the user preference and thecharacteristic of the media asset, which may be an output of theroutines described in lines 811 and 813 above, to a threshold valuestored in memory (e.g., storage 508). For example, based on whether thesimilarity of the second user preference and the characteristic of themedia asset meet the threshold value, control circuitry 504 assignseither a “true” or “false” value to Boolean variable B.

At line 816, control circuitry 504 determines whether the logicalstatement is true (e.g., that the first user preference corresponds tothe characteristic of the media asset). If the statement is true, thenat line 817 control circuitry 504 executes a subroutine to adjust anoutput parameter for the first output device. For example, controlcircuitry 504 may adjust any of a variety of output parametersincluding, but not limited to increasing or decreasing the volume,equalizer settings, and whether a censored stream is played on aparticular output device. Control circuitry 504 may retrieve the currentstate (e.g., the current output parameters) of an output device from adata structure (e.g., a table) stored in memory (e.g., storage 508).Control circuitry 504 may then update the value for a particular fieldin the data structure corresponding to an output parameter based on theuser preference corresponding to the characteristic of the media asset.Control circuitry 504 may then synchronize the updated data structurewith the output device, such that the output of the output device isupdated. In some embodiments, an amount to update the value isdetermined by control circuitry 504 based on the similarity between thecharacteristic and the user preference.

At line 818, control circuitry 504 determines whether the logicalstatement is true (e.g., that the second user preference corresponds tothe characteristic of the media asset). If the statement is true, thenat line 819 control circuitry 504 executes a subroutine to adjust anoutput parameter for the second output device, which may be identical tothe subroutine described in line 817 above, but instead of for the firstoutput device for the second output device. If the logical statement isnot determined to be true by control circuitry 504, control circuitry504 does not adjust the output parameter of the second output device.

At line 821, control circuitry 504 runs a termination subroutine afterthe algorithm has performed its function. For example, in someembodiments control circuitry 504 may destruct variables, performgarbage collection, free memory or clear the cache of processingcircuitry 506.

It will be evident to one skilled in the art that process 800 describedby the pseudocode in FIG. 8 may be implemented in any number ofprogramming languages and a variety of different hardware, and theparticular choice and location of primitive functions, logicalevaluations, and function evaluations are not intended to be limiting.It will also be evident that the code may be refactored or rewritten tomanipulate the order of the various logical evaluations, perform severaliterations in parallel rather than in a single iterative loop, or tootherwise manipulate and optimize run-time and performance metricswithout fundamentally changing the inputs or final outputs.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for generating an alert toaccess a media asset on a different device type based on userpreferences, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Forexample, a media guidance application implementing process 900 may beexecuted by control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5). It should be noted thatprocess 900 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by,any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6.

Process 900 begins with 902, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) a first user and asecond user are both associated with a first output device, wherein thefirst output device has a first output device type. For example, themedia guidance application may receive (e.g., via communications network614 (FIG. 6)) an indication from an RFID reader in the rear driver sidedoor of a car that it has detected an RFID chip corresponding to thefirst user. The media guidance application may then determine (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that since the user is seated in therear driver side seat of the car, the user's position corresponds to aspeaker in the rear driver side door. The media guidance application mayalso receive an indication (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG.6)) that a device associated with the second user is connected to a portlocated near the rear driver side door of a car. The media guidanceapplication may then determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG.5)) that since the second user is located near the rear driver sidedoor, the second user's position corresponds to the same speaker in therear driver side door.

Process 900 continues to 904, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a first userpreference of the first user and a second user preference of the seconduser. For example, the media guidance application may receive (e.g., viacommunications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a first user preference for musicby the artist, “Justin Bieber,” and a second user preference for musicby the artist, “Miles Davis.”

Process 900 continues to 906, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a media asset.For example, the media guidance application (e.g., via communicationsnetwork 614 (FIG. 6)) may receive the song, “Sorry,” by Justin Bieberfrom a content provider (e.g., content source 616 (FIG. 6)) such as aradio broadcaster or an on-line streaming media provider. For example,the media guidance application may be implemented on a car audio systemor other user device that outputs audio content via one or morespeakers, and receive one or more media assets for presentation to agroup of users.

Process 900 continues to 908, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) whether the firstuser preference does correspond to presenting the media asset and thatthe second user preference does not correspond to presenting the mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may determine (e.g.,via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that the received media asset,“Sorry,” is a song by artist “Justin Bieber” (i.e., a characteristic ofthe media asset). The media guidance application may then determine(e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) based on character matchingor other means of comparing two strings of text that the characteristic(e.g., “Justin Bieber”) matches none, one, or both user preferences(e.g., music by the artist “Justin Bieber”).

If the media guidance application does not determine the first userpreference does correspond to presenting the media asset and that thesecond user preference does not correspond to presenting the mediaasset, process 900 continues to 910, where the media guidanceapplication does not generate an alert. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5))that neither the first user preference nor the second user preferencecorresponds to a characteristic of the received media asset, “Sorry.” Inthis case, the media guidance application would not generate the alert,since neither user has expressed a preference for the media asset; inthis instance, the media asset may not be presented. As another example,the media guidance application may determine (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that both the first user preference and thesecond user preference corresponds to a characteristic of the receivedmedia asset, “Sorry.” In this case, the media guidance application wouldnot generate the alert, since both users have expressed a preference forthe media asset; in this case, the output of the media asset may beadjusted by the media guidance application as described above in FIGS. 1and 7-8 since both users enjoy the media asset.

If the media guidance application determines the first user preferencedoes correspond to presenting the media asset and that the second userpreference does not correspond to presenting the media asset, process900 continues to 912, where the media guidance application generates(e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) an alert notifying the firstuser to access a second output device to access the media asset, whereinthe second output device has a second output device type. For example,the media guidance application may determine (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that “Roar” by Katy Perry is a song of the “Pop”genre, but not of the “Big Band” genre. The media guidance applicationmay then generate (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) an alert,for example, a text message sent to a mobile device of the first user,notifying the first user that since the second user does not have apreference for “Roar,” in order to listen to the song, the first usershould plug in headphones to their mobile device which will output thesong.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 9 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. For example, multiple instances ofprocess 900 may be executed for each of a plurality of users at a partyor in a car to determine whether each user has expressed a preferencefor a media asset and is either not near an output device or other usersnear the same output device do not have a preference for the mediaasset. Furthermore, it should be noted that any of the devices orequipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 5-6 could be used to performone or more of the steps in FIG. 9.

The pseudocode in FIG. 10 describes a process to generate an alert toaccess a media asset on a different device type based on userpreferences. It will be evident to one skilled in the art that theprocess described by the pseudocode in FIG. 10 may be implemented in anynumber of programming languages and a variety of different hardware, andthat the style and format should not be construed as limiting, butrather a general template of the steps and procedures that would beconsistent with code used to implement some embodiments of thisdisclosure.

At line 1001, control circuitry 504 initializes a subroutine todetermine a first user and a second user are both associated with afirst out device of a first output device type. For example, in someembodiments control circuitry 504 may copy instructions fromnon-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device 508) into RAM orinto the cache for processing circuitry 506 during the initializationstage. For example, a separate routine may determine the locations ofthe first and second users (e.g., as in FIG. 11 below) and then pass theresults as parameters to the pseudocode (e.g., as inputs to a method).For example, control circuitry 504 may execute a routine to determinethat the first position corresponds to a first output device and thesecond position also corresponds to the first output device. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may access a database which may be storedlocally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotely at a media guidancedata source (e.g., media guidance data source 618) accessible via acommunications network (e.g., communications network 614), as describedfurther in FIGS. 5-6 above. For example, control circuitry 504 mayaccess a database organized as a table where each row contains adifferent output device (e.g., speaker 106 and 112) and each columncontains coordinates and/or indicators of position of each outputdevice. Control circuitry 504 may, as part of the routine, execute adatabase query language script, such as SQL, to retrieve data fromparticular expressions in the table such that control circuitry 504 cancompare the retrieved output coordinates for an output device to theuser's location, as described above in FIG. 9.

At line 1003, control circuitry 504 receives a first user preference ofthe first user and a second user preference of a second user. In someembodiments, the preferences may be retrieved from memory. Controlcircuitry 504 may receive these amounts by receiving, for example, apointer to an array of strings in a user profile containing “Favoriteartists” of the user. In some other embodiments, control circuitry 504may receive, via user input using user input interface 510, the userpreference directly from the user. For example, control circuitry 504may receive a user input of the string “Katy Perry” using a touchscreenon a mobile device.

At line 1005, control circuitry 504 receives a media asset. For example,control circuitry 504 may receive a pointer to a location in an indexdata structure containing links to media assets that are currentlyavailable from different content sources. As another example, controlcircuitry 504 may receive a media asset stream from a content source(e.g., an MPEG stream), which may contain an event information table orother identifying data embedded with media asset.

At line 1007, control circuitry 504 executes a routine to determinewhether to present the media asset to the first user based on the firstuser preference corresponding to a characteristic of the media asset.For example, control circuitry 504 may extract a characteristic of areceived media asset, from metadata embedded in a media asset streamfrom a content source or from a table or other data structure storedeither locally in memory (e.g., storage 508), or remotely at a mediaguidance data source (e.g., media guidance data source 618) accessiblevia a communications network (e.g., communications network 614). Controlcircuitry 504 may then compare the characteristic of the media asset tothe received first user preferences, as described above in detail inFIG. 9.

At line 1009, control circuitry 504 executes a routine to determinewhether the second user preference corresponds to the characteristic ofthe media asset. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 may performthe same routine as described above in line 1007 for each userdetermined to be in a certain area (e.g., by recursively calling theroutine described in line 1007 until each user's preference has beencompared to the characteristic of the media asset). In otherembodiments, control circuitry 504 may execute a second distinct routineto compare the characteristic of the media asset to the received seconduser preferences, as described above in detail in FIG. 9.

At line 1011, control circuitry 504 iterates through the variousreceived media assets, if only a single media asset has been received,the loop will only execute once. This loop may be implemented inmultiple fashions depending on the choice of hardware and softwarelanguage used to implement the algorithm of FIG. 8; for example, thismay be implemented as part of a “for” or “while” loop.

At line 1012, control circuitry 504 stores whether the first userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset as aBoolean variable “A.” In some embodiments, the variable will be storedas part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of Booleanvariable A may be obtained through appropriate accessor methods. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may call a function to perform acomparison of the similarity of the user preference and thecharacteristic of the media asset, which may be an output of theroutines described in lines 1007 and 1009 above, to a threshold valuestored in memory (e.g., storage 508). For example, based on whether thesimilarity of the first user preference and the characteristic of themedia asset meet the threshold value, control circuitry 504 assignseither a “true” or “false” value to Boolean variable A.

At line 1013, control circuitry 504 stores whether the second userpreference corresponds to the characteristic of the media asset as aBoolean variable “B.” In some embodiments, the variable will be storedas part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of Booleanvariable B may be obtained through appropriate accessor methods. In someembodiments, control circuitry 504 may call a function to perform acomparison of the similarity of the user preference and thecharacteristic of the media asset, which may be an output of theroutines described in lines 1007 and 1009 above, to a threshold valuestored in memory (e.g., storage 508). For example, based on whether thesimilarity of the second user preference and the characteristic of themedia asset meet the threshold value, control circuitry 504 assignseither a “true” or “false” value to Boolean variable B.

At line 1014, control circuitry 504 determines whether the logicalstatement is true (e.g., that the first user preference corresponds tothe characteristic of the media asset and that the second userpreference does not correspond to the characteristic of the mediaasset). If the statement is true, then at line 1015 control circuitry504 executes a subroutine to generate an alert notifying the first userto access a second output device to access the media asset. The secondoutput device may have a second output device type, such as the secondoutput device being an “mp3 player” and not “integrated speakers.” Forexample, control circuitry 504 may access the database described abovefor line 1001, which may be stored locally in memory (e.g., storage508), or remotely at a media guidance data source (e.g., media guidancedata source 618) accessible via a communications network (e.g.,communications network 614), as described further in FIGS. 5-6 above.For example, control circuitry 504 may access the database organized asa table where each row contains a different output device (e.g., speaker106 and 112), as well as different columns for the output device typeand user it is associated with, if applicable. In this way, controlcircuitry 504 can retrieve (e.g., by executing a database query languagescript such as SQL) an output device associated with the user totransmit the alert and media asset to, such that they can enjoy themedia asset and the second user does not need to listen and/or view amedia asset they do not enjoy.

At line 1016, control circuitry 504 determines whether the logicalstatement is true (e.g., that both the first and the second userpreferences correspond to the characteristic of the media asset). If thestatement is true, then at line 1017, control circuitry 504 executes asubroutine to adjust an output parameter for the first output device,which may be identical to that described above in FIGS. 7-8.

At line 1019, control circuitry 504 runs a termination subroutine afterthe algorithm has performed its function. For example, in someembodiments control circuitry 504 may destruct variables, performgarbage collection, free memory or clear the cache of processingcircuitry 506.

It will be evident to one skilled in the art that process 1000 describedby the pseudocode in FIG. 10 may be implemented in any number ofprogramming languages and a variety of different hardware, and theparticular choice and location of primitive functions, logicalevaluations, and function evaluations are not intended to be limiting.It will also be evident that the code may be refactored or rewritten tomanipulate the order of the various logical evaluations, perform severaliterations in parallel rather than in a single iterative loop, or tootherwise manipulate and optimize run-time and performance metricswithout fundamentally changing the inputs or final outputs.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining thelocation of a user and an output device near the user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, a media guidanceapplication implementing process 1100 may be executed by controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5). It should be noted that process 1100 or any stepthereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of the devices shownin FIGS. 5-6. Process 1100 begins with 1102, where the media guidanceapplication begins a process (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5))for determining a first user is at a first position, wherein the firstposition corresponds to a first output device. For example, the mediaguidance application may receive (e.g., via communications network 614(FIG. 6)) an indication from an RFID reader in the rear driver side doorof a car that it has detected an RFID chip corresponding to a particularuser. The media guidance application may then determine (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that since the user is seated in therear driver side seat of the car, the user's position corresponds to aspeaker in the rear driver side door.

Process 1100 continues to 1104, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) a location ofthe first user. For example, the media guidance application may receive(e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) an indication from apressure sensor that a user is sitting in the rear middle seat of a car,which may be assigned an arbitrary value “4.” Alternatively, thelocation could be defined by GPS coordinates or any other coordinatespace (e.g., the location of seats in a car is mapped on atwo-dimensional plane where the origin is the driver's seat).

Process 1100 continues to 1106, where the media guidance applicationaccesses (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) a databasecontaining a plurality of output devices and positions corresponding toeach of the plurality of output devices. For example, the media guidanceapplication may access (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) thedatabase which may be stored locally in memory (e.g., storage 508 (FIG.5)), or remotely at a media guidance data source (e.g., media guidancedata source 618 (FIG. 6)) accessible via a communications network (e.g.,communications network 614 (FIG. 6)). For example, the media guidanceapplication may access (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) adatabase organized as a table where each row contains a different outputdevice (e.g., speaker 106 and 112) and each column contains coordinatesand/or indicators of position of each output device.

Process 1100 continues to 1108, where the media guidance applicationretrieves (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) a value for theposition of an output device from a field in the database. For example,the media guidance application may execute a database query languagescript, such as SQL, to retrieve (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG.5)) data from a particular expression in the table. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve (e.g., via control circuitry 504(FIG. 5)) that “speaker 1,” which corresponds to rear passenger sidedoor speaker 106, has an arbitrary position value of, “5,” based on eachseat being associated with a particular number. Alternatively, theposition could be defined by GPS coordinates or any other coordinatespace (e.g., the location of seats in a car may be mapped on atwo-dimensional plane where the origin is the driver's seat).

Process 1100 continues to 1110, where the media guidance applicationcompares (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) the value to thelocation of the first user. For example, the media guidance applicationmay, based on a pre-defined rule-set where particular locations of users(e.g., the driver's seat has a location value of “1”) are matched toparticular output devices (e.g., a speaker in the door of the driver'sseat has a value of “2”) determine the proximity (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) of a particular output device to the first userbased on a series of logical statements. In other embodiments, the mediaguidance application may determine (e.g., via control circuitry 504(FIG. 5)) based on subtracting coordinates of an output device from theuser's location a distance from the device to the user.

Process 1100 continues to 1112, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) whether there areany other output devices. For example, the media guidance applicationmay store (e.g., in storage 508 (FIG. 5)) a record of which outputdevices have been compared against the user's location (e.g., as theyare retrieved from the database) and determine (e.g., via controlcircuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that there are no additional output devicesstored in the database. Alternatively, the media guidance applicationmay retrieve (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) position valuesfor output devices by executing a script that loops over (e.g., using a“for” or “while” loop) every row of a table in the database, where eachrow contains a different output device. When the end of the table isreached, the script ends and the media guidance application maydetermine (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) that there are noother output devices.

If the media guidance application determines there are more outputdevices, process 1100 returns to 1108, where the media guidanceapplication retrieves (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) anothervalue for the position of another output device from another field inthe database. For example, as described above, the media guidanceapplication will continue to compare (e.g., via control circuitry 504(FIG. 5)) the position of output devices to the location of the useruntil no more output devices are available to compare.

If the media guidance application determines there are not more outputdevices, process 1100 continues to 1114, where the media guidanceapplication determines (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) basedon the comparison of the value for each output device to the location ofthe first user, which output device is closest to the location of theuser. For example, the media guidance application may initialize andstore (e.g., in storage 508 (FIG. 5)) a variable for the closest outputdevice to the user. For each output device where a distance or proximityto the location of the user is determined as described above, the mediaguidance application may compare (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG.5)) the distance or proximity of the currently compared output device tothat of the closest output device stored in memory. If the currentlycompared output device is closer to the user, the media guidanceapplication may assign (e.g., via control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5)) thecurrently compared output device to the closest output device variable.The media guidance application may return (e.g., via control circuitry504 (FIG. 5)) this value corresponding to the output device when noadditional output devices are left to compare.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 11 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 11 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. For example, multiple instances ofprocess 1100 may be executed for each of a plurality of users at a partyor in a car to determine the location of each user and an output deviceclosest to each user. Furthermore, it should be noted that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 5-6 could be used toperform one or more of the steps in FIG. 11.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done inparallel. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may beperformed in real time. It should also be noted that the systems and/ormethods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving first userlocation data indicating a location of a first user and second userlocation data indicating a location of a second user; accessing adatabase comprising device location data corresponding to locations ofoutput devices, wherein the device location data comprises first devicelocation data indicating a location of a first output device and seconddevice location data indicating a location of a second output device;determining that first user preference data matches a characteristicassociated with a media asset; determining, based on the first userlocation data, the second user location data, and the device locationdata, whether the first output device is closer to the first user thanthe second user; and in response to determining that (a) the first userpreference data matches the characteristic associated with the mediaasset and (b) the first output device is closer to the first user thanthe second user: adjusting an output parameter associated with the firstoutput device for playback of the media asset while preventingadjustment of an output parameter associated with the second outputdevice.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining that adistance from the first output device to the location of the first useris shorter than a distance from the first output device to the locationof the second user; and determining that a distance from the secondoutput device to the location of the second user is shorter than adistance from the second output device to the location of the firstuser.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the output parameterassociated with the first output device comprises at least one ofchanging a volume of the first output device or preventing transmissionof the media asset to the first output device.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein the first output device is at least one of a speaker in a car ora display screen in the car, and wherein the second output device is atleast one of a personal computer, a mobile phone, a multi-media consolein the car.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receivingmetadata of the media asset from a content source; and comparing themetadata of the media asset to the first user preference data; whereindetermining that first user preference data matches the characteristicassociated with a media asset is based on the comparison.
 6. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: causing an indication of an upcomingmedia asset to be generated for display; and in response to receiving anexpression of interest in the upcoming media asset from the first user:adjusting the output parameter associated with the first output devicefor playback of the upcoming media asset while preventing adjustment ofthe output parameter associated with the second output device.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: determining whether there are anyadditional output devices in proximity to the first user.
 8. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: retrieving a first value for thelocation of the first output device from the database; and comparing thefirst value to the first user location data.
 9. The method of claim 8,further comprising: storing a record of which output devices have beencompared against the first user location data.
 10. The method of claim1, further comprising: determining that second user preference data doesnot match the characteristic associated with a media asset.
 11. A systemcomprising: input/output circuitry; control circuitry configured to:receive first user location data indicating a location of a first userand second user location data indicating a location of a second user;access a database comprising device location data corresponding tolocations of output devices, wherein the device location data comprisesfirst device location data indicating a location of a first outputdevice and second device location data indicating a location of a secondoutput device; determine that first user preference data matches acharacteristic associated with a media asset; determine, based on thefirst user location data, the second user location data, and the devicelocation data, whether the first output device is closer to the firstuser than the second user; and in response to determining that (a) thefirst user preference data matches the characteristic associated withthe media asset and (b) the first output device is closer to the firstuser than the second user: adjust an output parameter associated withthe first output device for playback of the media asset while preventingadjustment of an output parameter associated with the second outputdevice.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: determine that a distance from the first outputdevice to the location of the first user is shorter than a distance fromthe first output device to the location of the second user; anddetermine that a distance from the second output device to the locationof the second user is shorter than a distance from the second outputdevice to the location of the first user.
 13. The system of claim 11,wherein adjusting the output parameter associated with the first outputdevice comprises at least one of changing a volume of the first outputdevice or preventing transmission of the media asset to the first outputdevice.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the first output device isat least one of a speaker in a car or a display screen in the car, andwherein the second output device is at least one of a personal computer,a mobile phone, a multi-media console in the car.
 15. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:receive metadata of the media asset from a content source; and comparethe metadata of the media asset to the first user preference data;wherein determining that first user preference data matches thecharacteristic associated with a media asset is based on the comparison.16. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to: cause an indication of an upcoming media asset to begenerated for display; and in response to receiving an expression ofinterest in the upcoming media asset from the first user: adjust theoutput parameter associated with the first output device for playback ofthe upcoming media asset while preventing adjustment of the outputparameter associated with the second output device.
 17. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the control circuitry, is further configured todetermine whether there are any additional output devices in proximityto the first user.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to: retrieve a first value for thelocation of the first output device from the database; and compare thefirst value to the first user location data.
 19. The system of claim 11,wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: store a recordof which output devices have been compared against the first userlocation data.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitryis further configured to: determine that second user preference datadoes not match the characteristic associated with a media asset.